Hellgate: London, Vol. 1

Written by Arvid Nelson, Art by Jeyong Mo Yang
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (18+)

Based on the video game of the same name, Hellgate: London depicts events leading up to the focal point of the game, namely a demonic invasion on Halloween night. The primary characters are John and Lindsey Fowler, two teens who are about to discover some very dark family secrets.

The story is strangely familiar: two siblings, a magic sword, a dark family secret, and a connection to an ancient order of knights. Yes, I think we’ve seen this before, but now it’s got some occult and horror flavor sprinkled here and there. John and Lindsey are such generic figures that they add to the book’s “been here, done that” feeling. They’re not particularly fleshed out or compelling and spend most of the book being told where to go and what to do by other people. John’s a nice guy with an apparent darkness within, while Lindsey’s a young firebrand who speaks her mind. That’s all the depth you’ll be getting here.

The plot takes center stage here, and it’s a bit blah too. There’s all sorts of weirdness with an unearthed corpse, a mysterious medallion, and a rather odd looking sword, not to mention John and Lindsey’s quest to find out what’s going on. What they find is a mysterious past littered with the occult and ties to the Knights Templar and that’s when Hellgate: London starts to get interesting, as the story touches upon the history of the Fowler family: their involvement with the creation of the London Underground (giving this subway system a kind of occult significance), an ancestor who was alive during the Black Plague, references to the great fire of 1666. All of this is quiet interesting, but there’s just too little of it and too much “now go do this.”

The art’s nice enough, though it felt a bit more western than I’m used to encountering in Tokyopop graphic novels. Everyone looks different, but the character designs aren’t anything amazing, plus the backgrounds are usually absent. Still, the monsters are nice enough, and the shock moments are fairly well drawn. There’s no real image or visual moment that really jumps out. It’s solid enough, just a bit bland.

It’s interesting to note that Hellgate seems be quite the multimedia franchise. There’s at least one more volume coming from Tokyopop, a preview to a novel based upon the game, and around the time the game originally launched, Dark Horse published a short mini-series based on it as well. In the end, Hellgate: London is just an OK read–nothing ground breaking or amazing, but nothing offensively bad either. It did get me curious about the world’s history, not to mention Arvid Nelson’s own occult conspiracy comic series, Rex Mundi, so I suppose that’s something.

Volume one of Hellgate: London is available now.

Is it just my imagination, or has Dark Horse quietly shelved Bride of the Water God and Translucent (a fate that also seems to have befallen XS Hybrid, a manhwa I was decidedly less enthusiastic about)? Scanning their website, I didn’t see the next volume of either scheduled for release between now and October. A quick search of Amazon didn’t yield any hits, either. Does anyone know what’s befallen these series? God, I hope I haven’t fallen for two more DH titles that will never reach closure—after the heartbreak of Club 9 and Satsuma Gishiden, I’m beginning to feel like a commitment-phobic bachelor, at least as far as DH’s manga/manhwa are concerned.

And speaking of books in limbo, what’s befallen Aki Shimizu’s Qwan? According to the Wikipedia, six volumes have been released in Japan, but Tokyopop has yet to publish anything beyond volume four. I’m wondering why it’s been almost a year since the last release—is it a licensing issue, or has Tokyopop caught up to the Japanese edition? I’d hate to see this offbeat shonen fantasy languish in manga purgatory, as its gorgeous artwork and compelling, folkloric storyline deserve a bigger audience.

When we launched Weekly Recon nearly one year ago (on June 20, 2007, to be exact), the goal was to highlight the best new manga arriving in stores each week with a mixture of off-the-cuff recommendations and brief reviews. The vagaries of the book distribution system, however, have frustrated our efforts to synchronize reviews and shipping lists. So this week, our column goes under the knife for a tummy tuck and a brow lift, with the goal of producing a leaner, meaner rundown of Wednesday’s new arrivals. You’ll still find the complete Midtown Comics shipping list here, as well as recommendations (now expressed as a top three or top five list) and, when appropriate, helpful hints for saving a buck or two. Reviews will be handled in a separate column, to be rolled later this month.

But enough about us—let’s talk about manga!

More than seventy new titles are appearing on store shelves this week, making this an especially onerous Wednesday for anyone with a serious manga habit. My top picks for the week:

CLAMP no Kiseki, Vol. 11 (Tokyopop): I’ll be honest: $19.99 seems a little steep for a beautifully produced thirty-two page magazine and three plastic chess pieces. But if you’re a rabid CLAMP fan, you’ll hate yourself in the morning if you pass up the opportunity to assemble a full run of CLAMP no Kiseki. And if you’ve just discovered this prolific, four-woman collective, you’ll be delighted to learn that volume eleven celebrates their current hit Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNICLES with artist interviews, full-color pin-ups, original manga, and exhaustive lists of tie-in products and publication milestones.

Color of Rage, Vol. 1 (Dark Horse) Does manga get any manlier than Kazuo Koike? This odd historical drama focuses on two slaves—one Japanese, one African-American—who escape from a transport ship, only to find themselves shackled together on the shores of Edo-era Japan. (No, this wasn’t conceived as a vehicle for Toshiro Mifune and Richard Pryor, though that pairing might have been sublime. Or sublimely awful—take your pick.) Expect plenty of sex, violence, and social commentary, as well as a few scenes that may strike American readers as naïve or misguided in their presentation of racial issues.

In the Starlight, Vol. 3 (NETCOMICS) Kyungok Kang’s unabashedly romantic sci-fi saga owes a considerable debt to Moto Hagio and Keiko Takemiya, both in terms of visuals—sparkling eyes! untamed manes! androgynously beautiful characters in tight pants!—and story—telekinesis! aliens! princesses switched at birth! The script is a bit tin-eared at times, but Kang’s artwork and richly layered characters more than offset a few clunky lines of dialogue.

King of Thorn, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop): Jurassic-sized lizards and killer plants terrorize a group of seemingly ordinary souls who waited out a pandemic in cryogenic sleep. The plot has a paint-by-numbers feel, but Yuji Iwahara’s knack for staging scary chases makes this monster mash an entertaining read.

Sand Chronicles, Vol. 2 (Viz): This lovely, understated story about a teenager coping with the fallout from her mother’s suicide is proof positive that “shojo” is not a catch-all term for “cheesy romances about boy-crazy girls.” Yes, it touches on such perennial coming-of-age topics as first love and fitting in, but manga-ka Hinako Ashihara’s gift for finding truthful nuance in everyday situations makes Sand Chronicles an engrossing read whether you’re thirteen or thirty-three.

Look for the complete shipping list after the cut.

(Continued)

I went to the cupboard in search of a snappy intro for this month’s Minis, but alas—I came up empty. So I’ll dispense with the opening gambit and simply say that this month’s column looks at two new Tokyopop titles, Dragon Sister! and eV, the second volumes of Love Master A (Go! Comi) and Sakura Ganbaru! (UDON), and the best-selling Naruto handbook (Viz), which has been flying off shelves since its release.

Dragon Sister!, Vol. 1

By Nini
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen (13+)




Buried beneath the slapstick, speedlines, and extreme mammary close-ups is an intriguing premise: what if ancient China’s greatest warriors were, in fact, women? Dragon Sister! begins around 184 AD, when three brothers—Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang—acquire a set of magical scrolls capable of granting any wish. In their desire to overthrow the Han Dynasty, the brothers pray that no more heroes will be born, only beautiful women. Their scheme backfires, however, transforming them into a cabal of power-hungry girls. As the country descends further into chaos, young nobleman Liu Bei forms a volunteer army to oppose the Zhang sisters (formerly brothers), recruiting two busty babes, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, to aid his cause. None of this is explained very clearly—we never have a sense of who the various factions are, or why Liu Bei remains faithful to a corrupt emperor. Instead, manga-ka Nini treats us to a seemingly endless parade of costume failures, crude jokes, and scenes of predatory lesbianism, all delivered in speech that vacillates between present-day dudespeak and wuxia film formality. Strictly for the fanservice crowd; others are advised to look elsewhere for more enlightened tales of female empowerment.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

eV, Vol. 1

Created by Roger Mincheff, Written by James Farr, Art by Alfa Robbi and Papillon Studio

Published by Tokyopop, 192 pages
Rating: Teen (13 +)




From the mind that brought us The Covenant comes eV, the tale of a brilliant young woman, Evie, who finds herself injected with über-nanomachines that give her a vast array of physical and mental abilities. Once injected, Evie is taken to the far side of the universe to serve as Earth’s ambassador in a galactic federation.

Farr does a good job with the material and the characters, crafting a fairly fun and fast paced sci-fi adventure story. The whole thing has the feel of a summer blockbuster right down to certain stock characters: a workaholic father who will do anything for his daughter, the daughter who’s bitter and resentful at her father for being away all the time, and a mother who tries to hold the family together the best she can. On the other hand, the book also manages to translate the summer blockbuster feel to the story in terms of the size, scope, and set pieces. You can practically hear the pop rock songs playing at certain parts of the story. On top of that Farr manages to throw in some nifty tweaks to keep things interesting. Evie’s powers aren’t limited to simply amazing physical feats; her subconscious manifests itself in the form of a lil’ flying talking orb, which leads to some comical moments here and there.

Alfa Robbi has some solid story telling abilities but the art style itself just didn’t click. Something about it had me wishing the entire thing had been in color. Maybe it was the various alien life forms, or the moments towards the end when Evie utilizes some energy manipulation abilities, but I really felt that this was a story that would have benefited from some color. Ultimately eV is fluff, but sometimes fluff can be fun.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

Love Master A, Vol. 2

By Kyoko Hashimoto
Go!Comi, 200pp.
Rating: Teen (13+)

It’s hard to conjure words to describe Love Master A, and it’s certainly not because the title is breathtakingly brilliant. The second installment of Kyoko Hashimoto’s middling school-life romance is so achingly mediocre it’s hard to tell if there’s anything original at all in between all the clichés. The first year school council crew—each easily summed up in three word archetypes—finds itself faced with a healthy plethora of problems, ranging from romantic infighting to the imminent closure of the council itself.

The resolutions are, of course, vaguely heartwarming and grindingly endearing, and with bland shojo everygirl Aria helming the story, it’s hard to find any respite from the standard shojo drudgery. That said, Hashimoto’s attempt to refresh the central love story by reversing the primary perspective is at least moderately novel, and works well to prolong the romantic angst well into the last pages of the book. There’s nothing new here in terms of artistic invention, with Hashimoto bringing out plenty of flowery screentones, sometimes overly so, resulting in visuals that are sufficiently sparkling but occasionally overdone. The dialogue, however, is want to wander more freely into the realm of cheese, resulting in a love confession so unbelievably corny that most other shojo manga would only tackle the same material if they were parodying the genre. With so much else out there on the market, it’s hard to imagine recommending Love Master A to anyone—but if you’ve truly exhausted the offerings, feel free to bide your time with a copy.

–Reviewed by Chloe Ferguson

Naruto: The Official Handbook

By Masashi Kishimoto
Viz, 288 pp.

Looking at ICv2, I can see that Naruto: The Official Fanbook has moved quite a few copies. In fact, it was number fifteen on the best-selling manga list in February. After taking a peek, I’m going to say there aren’t a lot of reasons why it should be selling. The vast majority of the content is plot summary, and the parts that aren’t are generally pretty mundane. There are a ton of quizzes in this, which I found to be inane or largely uninteresting; and even the interviews with Masashi Kishimoto are totally pointless. He reveals nothing, and answers no serious questions.

This is not to say that there weren’t some pleasant surprises in the volume. After opening the book, I found a nifty two-sided color pinup. It’s one of Kishimoto’s more whimsical pictures to, so I was quite pleased to see it. Also, if you don’t feel like picking up the issue of Shonen Jump, this volume has the bonus Naruto pilot story. Despite this material, I don’t recommend buying this volume unless you’re a hardcore completist. If you want the good material (e.g. the full-color art and the pilot story), grab the issue of Shonen Jump which contains it, and grab the Naruto artbook out right now, Uzumaki. You’ll be much more pleased with your purchases.

–Reviewed by Isaac Hale

Sakura Ganbaru!, Vol. 2

By Masahiko Nakahira
UDON Entertainment, 200 pp.

Following the events of the first volume and the conclusion of Kairin’s street fighting tournament, Sakura Ganbaru! continues along the lines of a paint-by-numbers shonen, but with everything compressed into two volumes. The results are wonderful as the fights are fast paced and exciting, and plots aren’t dragged out for dozens upon dozens of volumes. Much like other shonen protagonists (or Ryu from the Street Fighter Alpha manga), Sakura grows and learns more about herself, the nature of fighting and even attempts to discover what it means to be a true fighter. Her encounters with various other characters such as Gen, Chun Li or Zangief serve to illuminate different aspects of her quest and growth, and show the pitfalls of it as well.

Nakahira’s art is as clean and strong as ever, and he does a fantastic job with the various characters and their signature abilities and fighting styles. Unlike the previous volume, this one clearly alludes to the events in the Street Fighter Alpha manga, making some of the character interactions seem a bit odd. I suppose it’s best to think of them as loosely connected. Still, you won’t need to have read the Alpha manga to understand or enjoy Sakura Ganbaru! and doing so might actually leave you scratching your head a few times. At any rate, it’s still a fun and enjoyable series, and it’s great to see a young girl who’s capable of kicking butt and not in need of rescue.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

RE:Play, Vols. 1-2

By Christy Lijewski
Tokyopop, 192 pages
Rating: Older Teen (16 +)

After a disastrous falling out with their bassist, Cree’s band is in trouble. Thankfully, she stumbles across a random scruffy, yet cute, homeless guy named Izsak strumming away on a subway platform. After some quick talking she brings him home, let’s him stay in her apartment, and convinces him to join the band. But what secrets does the sexily brooding Izsak have? Why doesn’t he remember much of his past? And who’s the little kid and woman following him around? And what’s with the scars? These are just a few of the questions Christy Lijewski poses in the first two volumes of her supernatural relationship drama, RE:Play.

Writing-wise, Lijewski’s handling of the relationships and character interactions really shines. The back and forth between Cree, her close friend and brother figure Rail, and their drummer Char, are fun to watch and are definitely the kind of quips and witty repartee you’d expect from close friends. The mystery surrounding Izsak and his past is interesting at first, but I felt it was also where the story ran into some problems. The blending of the nebulous, but probably supernatural, nature of his past with the relationship drama doesn’t quite click for me. It’s an odd thing really, because Izsak’s mysterious past and his budding relationship with Cree are fun and engaging, but once we start getting hints of possible vampirism or zombie-ism, mixed with the appearance of a shadow-manipulating pretty boy, the whole thing started to lose me.

The second volume runs into similar problems with one or two new ones. The cliffhanger from the first volume is resolved in almost no time at all, and there’s a bizarre memory lapse on Rail’s part regarding his near death at the hands of the shadow-manipulating pretty boy, and… actually, not much else really happens for the rest of the second volume. While the relationships and conversations are again fun to watch, the book still had this air of “oops” about it. It felt like Lijewski had changed her mind after the first volume was out, decided that she wanted to go in a slightly different direction than originally planned and this was the volume used to try and bring the story back to where it was before all the craziness of first volumes finale. It almost felt like she’d hit a reset button and really nothing major, aside from a few flashbacks for the supporting cast, is added to the puzzle and none of the questions are really answered.

Lijewski’s art isn’t too shabby and her clothing designs are fantastic and lovely to look at. She does a great job at nailing alt-rocker chic with the cast’s outfits. I’m actually a bit surprised that TP hasn’t attempted to spin off a few of the designs into merchandising–they’re just that eye catching–and I can easily see people putting down cash for barbed wire collars. There’s definitely an improvement between the first and second volume. The second volume looks much crisper and cleaner than the first volume and I get the feeling Lijewski’s art is just going to be even better in the third. The brief sketches and design bits we get as extras at the end of each volume are a real treat. I’m a fan of sketch book extras so I really enjoyed seeing her uninked pencils for some of the character designs.

All in all RE:Play is a bit of an odd creature. I really enjoyed the relationships and all the drama that comes with them, but the supernatural aspects were handled in a way that just pulled me from the story completely. It’s almost like reading two books at time, or getting a bit of one book mixed in with another. Still, between the fun script and Lijewski’s art, including her way too adorable chibi moments, I was able to get over my problems with the supernatural elements and still enjoy the two volumes.

Volumes one and two of RE:Play are available now.

Like Yen, Tokyopop handled its biggest announcement in a press release, rather than an industry panel. As numerous sites have reported, Tokyopop will be getting into the graphic novel business, publishing full-color comics from around the world. Read on for the full scoop, as well as a quick run-down of upcoming Tokyopop releases.
(Continued)

Yes, there will be blood… in the latest installment of The Otaku Bookshelf, that is. This month, Ken and I take a look at two of the most popular anime-manga-novel franchises on the market right now: Blood+ and Trinity Blood. And in keeping with our vampire theme, books are rated on the following scale of one to five garlic bulbs:

= Drive a stake through it–it’s terrible!

= Find the silver bullets–you may need them to slay this stinker!

= Good fun.

= Great–put away that wolfsbane!

= Awesome, even if you’re not one of the living dead.

Blood: The Last Vampire: Night of the Beasts

By Mamoru Oshii; Translated by Camellia Nieh
Dark Horse, 300 pp.

Despite its title, the real hero of Blood: The Last Vampire isn’t Saya, the katana-wielding schoolgirl who dispatches Chiropterans with ferocious abandon; it’s Rei Miwa, a high school student and sometime anti-war activist living near the Yokota Air Base in 1969. The first time Rei spots Saya, he can’t believe his eyes: there, at the end of a dark Tokyo alley, is a teenager attacking what looks like a gorilla-bat-wookie hybrid while two black-suited foreigners watch from a car with diplomatic plates. Before he can so much as yell “WTF?!,” Riku takes a knock to the head, eventually waking up in police custody, unable to explain what he was doing in the blood-soaked alley where they found him. Once sprung from the pokey, a seedy investigator approaches Riku with information about Saya and her possible connection to a string of student-activist murders: will Riku help him gather intelligence on these radical groups in the interest of protecting his fellow protesters from Saya? Riku agrees, but quickly learns that the mystery is more complex than the detective initially let on.

Sounds like a great set-up for a supernatural thriller—if the execution were more skillful. Alas, Blood: The Last Vampire is so pretentious that any sense of fear evoked by Saya’s first appearance is quickly buried under mountains of long-winded prose. Mamoru Oshii, the creative mind behind Ghost in the Shell, relates most of the story through artless dialogue that’s studded with Cliff Note glosses on famous Western philosophers, Darwinism, vampire lore, and the Rothschilds. That last topic is handled with an astonishing lack of sensitivity, frequently crossing the line into anti-Semitic territory with its unflattering depiction of this powerful family as the engineers of Europe’s greatest crises. Oshii also tosses a Vatican conspiracy into the mix—an equal opportunity gesture, I guess—that’s as poorly integrated into the story as it is laughable.

The biggest problem with Oshii’s novel, however, is that almost nothing happens. For a chapter in one of Japan’s most enduring, popular vampire franchises, there’s precious little information about the titular character. To some extent, that might be expected—spin-off novels and manga often explore secondary characters and side stories. But when they’re this dull, it’s hard to imagine how even the most devoted fan would want to commit the time and energy to reading it, especially when the title character appears in just a handful of scenes.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Blood+, Vol. 1: First Kiss

By Ryo Ikehata, Illustrations by Chizu Hashii, Translated by John Thomas
Dark Horse, 354 pp.

This faithful, fast-paced adaptation of the Blood+ anime covers the first fourteen episodes of the series. Most of volume one focuses on Saya’s re-awakening, as she struggles to remember her past: where and why she fought, how she ended up in the custody of the mysterious Red Shield agency, and why a ridiculously handsome young man (who just so happens to play a mean Bach Cello Suite) risks life and limb to protect her from Chiropterans. The prose gets the job done, but abounds in ungainly metaphors, odd shifts in tense, and statements of the obvious. When Saya visits the Yanbaru laboratory where her father is being held, for example, author Ryo Ikehata offers this awkward description of the facilities:

All places called nature conservation centers were basically small-scale museums. There are carefully tended tropical plants and stuffed versions of endangered birds and wildcats. These displays are arranged in an attractive and efficient way throughout the building.
Naturally, they had entered after hours. The lights were out and the staff had all gone home.

If the text reads like something from a high school literary magazine, the packaging is first rate, featuring illustrations by Chizu Hashii, the artist responsible for the anime’s distinctive character designs. The book also includes several full-color glossy plates as well as a helpful character guide. For fans who may have missed a few episodes of the television series, Blood+: First Kiss is a painless way to catch up. For anyone curious about the Blood+ franchise, the novel makes a good introduction to Saya and her world, as everything is spelled out clearly and concisely. For folks who care about good writing… well, that’s what V.S. Naipaul is for.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Trinity Blood: Rage Against the Moons, Vol. 1: From the Empire; Trinity Blood: Reborn on the Mars, Vol 1: Star of Sorrow

Written by Sunao Yoshida, Art By Thores Shibamoto, Translated by Anastasia Moreo
Published by Tokyopop

Set in a distant future after a massive war, the story follows the adventures of Abel Nightroad and his exploits as a special AX Agent of the Vatican. In this future world, the Vatican has once again risen to power and now exists in a Cold War-style standoff with an empire to the East, an empire ruled by Vampires. A shadowy organization emerges with a sinister purpose: escalating this new Cold War into a rather hot one.

Rage Against the Moons is a collection of short, loosely connected tales, including the story for the first episode of the anime series, while Reborn on the Mars is a single volume story focusing on an undercover mission to the free state of Istavan. I’m pretty sure that every single story has been adapted into an anime episode or episodes. The biggest difference is the order, along with the fact that we get a little more background. Sadly it’s not a whole lot more information on the Trinity Blood universe, and most of it pops up in Reborn on the Mars. I have to admit, I was hoping for Vampire Hunter D levels of new material. I figured we’d get reams of back story, inner monologues and the like that never made into the anime. Frankly, I’m surprised at just how much of this material I remember from anime. Still, the stories move along at a nice clip and manage to be fairly enjoyable, plus what little new information was given was quite welcome.

One of the common threads throughout both books are the machinations of the mysterious Orden Rosenkreuz, as they attempt to orchestrate a war between the humans the vampires. They’re far more prominent in Reborn on the Mars, but they turn up on several occasions in Rage Against the Moons as well. Both times they stick to the shadows and are portrayed as the movers and shakers behind the scenes. This is actually one element I’d love to see expanded as the novels continue. I’d love to find out more about the group and their ultimate end.

The art is scattered throughout the two volumes and usually depicts a scene from the one of the stories. It’s black and white and quite pretty. It does a good job at rendering the characters in various cool and important moments and the most of the character designs look wonderfully detailed. I think I preferred the art choices in Reborn on the Mars more than Rage Against the Moons, as Shibamoto just seemed to pick better scenes to illustrate. There are a few odd moments where the art clashes with the writing, the most notable being the description of Sister Kate, the Iron Maiden. In the novel she’s described as older nun, but Shibamoto draws her like a teenager. It’s a minor nit pick but it really leapt out at me.

Ultimately, Trinity Blood is fluff, but it’s pretty fun fluff. It’s not especially deep or though provoking, but Suano’s certainly created an interesting post-apocalyptic world that should engage sci-fi and vampire buffs alike.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

Last week’s shipping list looked like a well-stocked buffet, with something for every taste, from the waistline-conscious to the unapologetic meat-eater. This week’s, however, inspires as much excitement as a high school cafeteria’s salad bar with its limited offerings: a few debut volumes—Element Line, Gosick, Hellgate London (Tokyopop), and Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector (Viz)—the latest installments of long-running favorites—InuYasha (manga and ani-manga) and Zatch Bell (Viz)—and a smattering of other titles—Dragon Eye, Princess Resurrection (Del Rey). Though the list is brief, there are two must-have manga mixed in with the sprouts and ranch dressing: volume two of The Other Side of the Mirror (Tokyopop), a gritty, beautifully illustrated drama from Jo Chen, and volume three of Presents (CMX), the title that inspired John Jakala to coin the best mangablogging term of 2007: comeuppance theater. I’m not normally a horror fan, but I found Kanako Inuki’s cute-grotesque illustrations, efficient set-ups, and surprise endings a welcome antidote to such wan examples of comeuppance theater as I Wish (Tokyopop) and Nightmares for Sale (Aurora). Though there’s a moral to every present, Inuki serves up plenty of black humor as she punishes the wicked, the vain, the selfish, and the downright stupid.

Intrepid newcomer Isaac Hale will be tackling Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector later this week, so I decided to focus my efforts on two new Tokyopop titles: Element Line, a fantasy-adventure that pits a plucky teen against toothy monsters, and Gosick, a light novel set in what might be described as a Japanese author’s idea of Jazz Age Europe. (Read: heavy on the petticoats and bustles, light on the flapper dresses and cigarette holders.) Also in the mix is A Wise Man Sleeps, the latest Go! Comi release from Mick Takeuchi, creator of Her Majesty’s Dog.

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:
Dragon Eye, Vol. 4 (Del Rey)
Element Line, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Gosick, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Hellgate London, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
InuYasha, Vol. 33 (Viz)
InuYasha Ani-Manga, Vol. 26 (Viz)
O-Parts Hunter, Vol. 9 (Viz)
The Other Side of the Mirror, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Presents, Vol. 3 (CMX)
Princess Resurrection, Vol. 3 (Del Rey)
Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector, Vol. 1 (Viz)
Zatch Bell, Vol. 18 (Viz)

Element Line, Vol. 1

By Mamiya Takizaki
Tokyopop, 178 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Along the borders of a desert country, a mysterious warrior named Laolyth defends his fellow citizens from a race of man-eating monsters. No one has seen his face since the day Rizoms killed his wife and, presumably, his infant son, though numerous victories have been attributed to him in that fourteen-year interim. Laolyth’s feats of derring-do inspire Kam, a young orphan, to join the Guild, a band of soldiers who escort caravans between the country’s heavily fortified cities. There’s just one problem: Kam’s body is undergoing a hideous metamorphosis that he must hide from his fellow recruits, lest they mistake him for the enemy. Sounds like a promising mixture of “politics and high fantasy,” to borrow a phrase from Element Line’s back cover, but bad dialogue and poor pacing conspire against the story’s more interesting elements to produce an indigestible stew of protracted battles, long-winded speeches, and bolt-from-the-blue scenes that make little to no dramatic sense. The most disappointing aspect of the story, however, is the artwork. Manga-ka Mamiya Takizaki obscures the action in screentone and speed lines, making it difficult to follow the story. The character designs are flat-out ugly and betray a certain ignorance of basic anatomy; the adults would benefit from Botox treatments to iron out the odd, unnatural wrinkles that have been superimposed on their faces. Even the Rizoms are rather uninspired, looking like the unwanted progeny of kudzu and caterpillars. Not recommended unless you’re a hardcore fantasy fan.

Volume one of Element Line will be available on April 9th.

Gosick, Vol. 1 (Novel)

By Kazuki Sakuraba; Illustrations by Hinata Takeba
Tokyopop, 232 pp.

Described as a “modern twist on Holmes and Watson,” this old-fashioned murder mystery adheres to a tried-and-true formula in which a cold but brilliant detective is paired with a sincere but slightly dim sidekick who’s always a few clues behind the audience. In the case of Gosick, the Holmes stand-in is Victorique, the resident eccentric at the Saint Marguerite Academy in Sauville (a fictional European country, just in case you were about to visit the Wikipedia), while the Watson surrogate is Kazuya Kujo, the school’s sole Japanese student. Victorique is a little less degenerate than Conan Doyle’s greatest creation, favoring a pipe over a glass of absinthe; nonetheless, she shares Holmes’s contempt for small minds, superstitions, and emotionally driven decision-making. Her reputation for deductive reasoning leads the nearby town’s pretty-boy inspector to seek her advice whenever there’s a murder—which, given the size and geographical remoteness of the town, occurs with rather alarming frequency.

In the course of investigating a fortune teller’s death, Victorique and Kazuya board the Queen Berry, a ship which supposedly sank ten years earlier with a cargo of murdered children. The two endure a night of extreme violence and seemingly supernatural events as they comb the ship for clues about the old woman’s past. These scenes play like Ten Little Indians crossed with Battle Royale: the ship’s other passengers visit horrific deaths on one another, usually with sharp objects or booby traps. Interspersed with the carnage—which, despite my description, is pretty tame—are numerous conversations in which Victorique patiently debunks the notion that the Queen Berry is haunted, culminating in the kind of “if it wasn’t for those meddling kids I would have had my revenge!” ending familiar to Scooby Doo fans.

Adults may find all of this just a little too familiar to be truly satisfying. Tweens, however, should find plenty to like about Gosick, from the flamboyant characters to the over-the-top plot twists. Manga-ka Hinata Takeda’s illustrations are appealing, and actually reflect what’s happening in the story—something I can’t say for the images in many light novels I’ve read. And Tokyopop has done a great job packaging Gosick, adding an attractive floral border on every page that’s echoed in the cover design. A great book for the reluctant reader in your household.

Volume one of Gosick will be available on April 9th.

A Wise Man Sleeps, Vol. 1

By Mick Takeuchi
Go! Comi, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

While walking through the streets of Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Miharu is accosted by a handsome but clumsy stranger who pronounces her “unlucky,” and declares the “source of her misfortune” to be a ring that belonged to her mother. Miharu initially dismisses him as a quack. But when she examines her situation—her mother’s recent death, her father’s crushing debts—she begins to wonder if this odd fellow might be on to something. Rintaro promises to pay her a fortune for the seemingly worthless ring, which, he explains, contains a “wise man’s stone,” a necessary tool for a practicing alchemist. Through a series of mishaps—some comic, some serious—Miharu ingests the ring to prevent it from falling into a loan shark’s hands, only to discover she has the power to see dead people. She and Rintaro then team up to exorcise spirits who are unwilling to cross over. Yes, the premise is familiar, but the true pleasure of A Wise Man Sleeps lies with the characters. Rintaro, for example, can transform himself into a powerful, flirtacious sorcerer—for three minutes at a time. (He also goes blonde for the duration.) He keeps company with a blood-thirsty doll named Beatrice who dishes out tart one-liners with enviable timing. Even Miharu feels like a fresh creation, outwitting yakuza thugs and angry spirits with a mixture of sass and smarts that’s all too rare among shojo heroines. The artwork is clean and crisp, with plenty of atmospheric detail; in fact, I preferred it to the more minimalist approach Takeuchi uses in Her Majesty’s Dog. And speaking of Her Majesty’s Dog, A Wise Man Sleeps offers a more light-hearted gloss on themes found in the later work, and sometimes seems a little glib in comparison. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the first volume of Wise Man and hope that Go! Comi licenses more of Takeuchi’s work.

Volume one of A Wise Man Sleeps is available now.

The Third, Vol. 1

Story by Ryo Hoshino, Art by Ariko Itou
Tokyopop, 176 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16 +)

Based upon the anime series of the same name, The Third acts as a prequel exploring the time before Honoka earned the nickname of Sword Dancer, when she was just starting out in her career as a Dune Runner. The manga chronicles the missions and events that would forge her into the character seen in the anime. Unfortunately, these events and missions consist heavily of making uninteresting motivational speeches, finding cats, and talking crazy girls down from destroying buildings with violins. Action and adventure? Apparently a Dune Runner craves not these things, even if readers do.

The writing in the first volume is oddly stilted. Sentences are just worded strangely and there’s tons of exposition. In fact, that’s what most of this book is, usually in the form of speeches explaining outlooks and beliefs and other life lessons. Watch as Honoka carries on an internal monologue explaining how it’s important to take all her missions seriously, even the little ones like finding a lost cat! Gasp as she rambles on for pages about how everything, even robots, deserve to live! Tremble in awe as she explains why she does her job to a mad violin-wielding teen! I get that it’s supposed to show her in the early days before the high adventure and all that, but come on… next to no action but dozens of speeches? The journeymen period for adventurers can be a really interesting time. Look at the lessons Luke learned in Star Wars before becoming a full fledged Jedi. Look at Iria in the Iria: Zeiram the Animation. She’s just starting out but cities still get leveled in her adventures. But Honoka has to make do with convincing a terrified boy to pursue his dream of trying to fly a model airplane.

It’s not all bad and boring; there’s some interesting information about the world dropped here and there. Bizarre rules that The Third (the name of said world’s ruling group, all of whom have third eyes) have set out. Bans on advanced technology, flight, etc. that may or may not be linked the great war that turned most of the earth into a hostile desert environment.

Art-wise, the manga is OK but a little on the bland side. You can see what’s going on, and it’s fairly easy to follow and everyone’s kind of cute, but there’s nothing really spectacular or stand out about it one way or another. It’s not bad enough to really rant about, but it’s not lovely enough to gush over–serviceable but not spectacular. I did think that Honoka looked a bit scrawny and waifish at times, though. I get that she’s supposed to small and tomboyish, but at times she looked like a strong breeze would have snapped in her two. I really appreciated the fact that there was a manga in it with a small chested woman as the lead, as it’s nice to see different body types in manga–until all the older male characters began to make cracks about her small breasts. Meh.

I’d have a hard time recommending this book to anyone but fans of the anime, and even then you might be a bit disappointed. There’s just not enough in it for it to be anything but bland and fairly boring.

Volume one of The Third is available now.

The sheer quantity and variety of titles shipping this Wednesday list makes it nearly impossible to single out one or two as must-reads; there’s truly something for every taste, from Shakespearean manga to mermaid man-love. (The latter would be Selfish Mr. Mermaid, a DMP series that just begs to be read, if only for the title.) I’m going to let the list speak for itself and skip to the reviews. This week’s column examines two new shonen arrivals: Gun Blaze West (Viz), an oater by Rurouni Kenshin creator Nobuhiro Watsuki, and Mamotte Shugogetten (Tokyopop), a harem fantasy in the not-so-proud tradition of I Dream of Jeanie. Guess which one I liked better?

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:
Arcana, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Baby & Me, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Blazin Barrels, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Can’t Win With You, Vol. 3 (DMP)
Color of Love (DMP)
Dazzle, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Dragon Drive, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Dragon Head, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
EV (Tokyopop)
Eyeshield 21, Vol. 19 (Viz)
First Stage of Love (DMP)
Genju no Seiza, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Grenadier, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Gun Blaze West, Vol. 1 (Viz)
Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Vol. 1 (Viz)
Heaven, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Hoshin Engi, Vol. 6 (Viz)
Hot Steamy Glasses (DMP)
Hotel Africa, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
I-Doll, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
I-O-N (Viz)
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Vol. 10 (Viz)
La Corda d’Oro, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Lagoon Engine, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Le Chevalier d’Eon, Vol. 4 (Del Rey)
Leader’s High, Vol. 1 (CMX)
Liling Po, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Love Lesson (DMP)
Mamotte Shugogetten, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Missing: Kamikakushi no Monogatari, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Mobile Suit Gundam Ecole du Ciel, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Mujyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, Vol. 4 (Viz)
Necratoholic (DMP)
Nosatsu Junkie, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Oh! My Goddess, Vol. 8 (Dark Horse)
Path of the Assassin, Vol. 10 (Dark Horse)
Phantom, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Pick of the Litter, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Planet Blood, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure, Vol. 1 (Viz)
Pretty Face, Vol. 5 (Viz)
Reborn!, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Saver, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Selfish Mr. Mermaid, Vol. 1 (DMP)
Shakespeare’s Hamlet: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Shakespeare’s Macbeth: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Sky Sharks, Vol. 1 (Antarctic Press)
Sorcerer Hunters, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Strawberry 100%, Vol. 4 (Viz)
Tail of the Moon, Vol. 10
Takumi-Kun Series, Vol. 3: Tales Out of Season (BLU Manga)
Tower of the Future, Vol. 10 (CMX)
Tsukoyumi Moon Phase, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Vampire Knight, Vol. 4 (Viz)

Gun Blaze West, Vol. 1

By Nobuhiro Watsuki
Viz, 186 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Let me begin ths review with a disclaimer: Ken Burns would not approve of the historical liberties taken by Gun Blaze West creator Nobuhiro Watsuki. The dialogue, for example—the characters speak in a distinctly modern patois, filled with phrases never uttered by Sitting Bull or General Custer. The scenery, for another—verdant Eastern forests abut rugged desert canyons, even though the story begins in Illinois. (I particularly liked Watsuki’s rendering of Saint Louis as a kind of Budapest on the Mississippi. But I’m getting ahead of myself.) Even the saloon names feel a little off-kilter, as one group of outlaws patronize a joint called… Bella Donna. Such incongruities may offend Mr. Burns, but they’re just part of this boisterous series’ charm.

Gun Blaze West focuses on a brash young boy named Viu Bannes. Though he lives in a small Midwestern town, Viu dreams of visiting Gun Blaze West, a mythical city populated by the West’s greatest gunslingers. (On the map, it appears to be located in Seattle, making me wonder if Gun Blaze West is, in fact, populated by the West’s most caffeinated gunslingers.) Viu’s life is transformed by the arrival of Marcus Homer, a genial drifter with a checkered past. Marcus reluctantly agrees to show Viu the gunslinging ropes, and the two begin the kind of over-the-top training regimen that, as my colleague Ken pointed out in his recent review of Black Cat, is found only in the pages of Shonen Jump. Before Viu can complete his training, however, the notorious Kenbrown gang arrives in Winston Town, terrorizing the citizens and threatening Viu’s older sister. Viu and Marcus’s standoff with the Kenbrown gang ends with an unexpected turn of events—and one that sets the stage for Viu’s subsequent cross-country odyssey.

If you’re a fan of Buso Renkin or Rurouni Kenshin, you know what to expect from Watsuki’s art: crisp draftsmanship, dynamic fight scenes, villains with memorable mugs and nonstop sight gags. The art’s relentless, antic quality wears a little thin towards the end of volume one; I found myself wishing that Watsuki would pause to savor the landscape or linger at the sight of a lonely gunslinger’s tombstone. That said, Gun Blaze West is solid addition to the Shonen Jump lineup, promising plenty of laughs and gunplay in future volumes.

Volume one of Gun Blaze West will be available on April 2nd.

Mamotte Shugogetten, Vol. 1

By Minene Sakurano
Tokyopop, 440 pp.
Rating: Teen (13+)

I’ve always found I Dream of Jeanie a rather creepy show, and reading Mamotte Shugogetten helped me realize why: there’s something fundamentally disconcerting about a comedy in which an innocent young women is released from prolonged confinement, only to be enslaved by a loser fan boy. In the case of Mamotte Shugogetten, that LFB is Tasuke, a lonely teen whose globe-trotting dad leaves him for months at a time. (No word on what happened to mom, though my guess is that she ran off with the mailman.) While traveling in China, Tasuke’s father mails him a strange gift: a ring with a large black stone. Tasuke peers into the stone and pow! a beautiful young woman in an exotic costume appears, calls him “master,” and vows to protect him from harm. You don’t need to be a genius—or an astronaut, for that matter—to guess what happens over the next four hundred pages: Shaorin the shugogetten turns Tasuke’s world upside down with her kind-hearted but woefully misguided efforts to defend him from perceived threats and cheer him up, all while wearing an assortment of cosplay-friendly outfits. The scenarios are painfully predictable and unfunny, right down to the introduction of a second, trampier shugogetten who dresses like a distant cousin of Elvira, Mistress of the Night. Even the artwork feels tired; though Shaorin and her super-kawaii minions are drawn with loving attention to detail, the rest of the cast is not. Nor are the backgrounds, which are so hastily rendered that every scene appears to take place in the same location. Only the dialogue makes it clear that the characters are, in fact, going to the store or visiting a temple.

I’m not sure why Tokyopop felt this mediocre manga deserved the omnibus treatment (volume one collects the first two volumes of the Japanese edition), as the second half of the story isn’t any more engrossing than the first. If you’re an avid cosplayer, you might find Shaorin’s numerous outfits a source of inspiration for your next con outing. Readers in search of other things—great characters, nifty art, original plotlines—are advised to proceed with caution.

Volume one of Mamotte Shugogetten will be available on April 2nd.